sipping like a big kid

i started water with maddux a few weeks ago, but have just recently been consistent about it. maddux loves water!  i am starting to think that he might be part camel like mason and i.  we practically have to pry it away from him at the end of a meal. 

he is getting so big!  love.

yesterday's post

this is the post that should have been... i made a list during the day of all the things i was going to blog about but then i just ran out of day. and i just had to watch the american idol results show before i accidentally saw the results today. matt was finishing up the new concrete slab he wanted to put in place of our pavers under the deck and i was trying to entertain madelyn while cleaning up the house for our visitors today (more on that in the next post).

madelyn was having fun playing peek-a-boo during lunch and she actually did it with her palms over her eyes (instead of the backs of her hands) a few times. then because i like to keep my life interesting, i decided to see how she would do without her sippy lid on her cup. i hadn't done that with her in a long time, but she actually was more careful with the cup and didn't spill as much as she does with the lid on! i wanted to try it because she drank water really great on the airplane from one of their plastic cups - making me realize that drinking from a cup is a really useful skill for her to have. not only did she make less of a mess, but she was more interested in drinking everything in her cup. she never ceases to amaze me.

while daddy was working on the concrete, maddie and i went to the park after (her) dinner to get out some more of her energy. plus it was such a nice night that i thought we might run into some of her neighborhood friends. being the brave parent that i am i decided to try and take a few pictures while being on safety watch. she is a very good climber.

sometimes she is too good of a climber. and really fast! a few of the neighbors couldn't believe how quickly she can scale up 'rock' mountain like thing on the playset that i was trying to describe in my last post. and she did it over and over and over and over until she started to get mad at me for pulling her off the top each time she got there. one of the mom's was saying that maddie can get to the top because her legs are long enough to reach all the steps. we finally had to move over to the swings as a distraction. maddie is so over the toddler playset and moving on to the bigger one.

in addition to her park climbing, madelyn has also discovered pulling her dresser drawers open and climbing up them! that is too scary for me! thank goodness for straps to secure the furniture to the wall.

and that is the post i wanted to share yesterday. now i have to do my real post for today. love.

mmmm...

i meant to put this up last night, but fell asleep instead. maddie has started to say "mmmm" while she eats. i think she is copying me, but i didn't realize that i was even making that noise until she started doing it too.

here she is eating her oatmeal (a little less aggressively than normal - we call her the piranha) and enjoying every bite! oatmeal is for sure her favorite. she did finally eat bananas today without looking like she was being tortured. i still don't think that they are her favorite, but she will at least eat them. we are going to try avocado next week.



and here she is drinking from her "real" cup. sometimes she gets both hands in the act and gets most of the water in her mouth. but you can get the general idea from this clip.



we picked up our Christmas cards today, so i can get to addressing them and maybe get them out on time this year... we'll see how everything goes. love.

i'm here and i'm loud - get used to it!

i have mentioned before that maddie really loves the sound of her own voice... well now she has taken it to a whole new volume level! she sounds like she is stuck or angry half the time, but she is actually happy and enjoying the noises she can make. yesterday we went to the grocery store and she wanted everyone to know that maddie was in the house. i had read that when they go through this volume stage that you should call it "singing" when out in public because it makes people less annoyed by what sounds like screaming. she was really going at it after her mid-morning meal, so i got some of her noise on video but she had definitely settled down a little by the time i got the camera. enjoy...

i found some smaller cups for maddie to use. it was more difficult to find them than i thought it would be. everything is spill proof or too big. i found these at toys-r-us and they are old school with the snap-on lids with spouts like i had as a kid. she loves them! when we use a sippy cup she has no interest in holding it to drink, but the second a real cup comes out she is reaching for it and has her mouth open. i will admit that more of the water stays in her mouth with the sippy cup, but not much more. she was actually holding the cup with both hands and putting to her mouth on her own today but when it occurred to me to get some pictures or video of it she was done with eating and drinking for the time being. i did get one picture where you can see how she puts her mouth on the rim.

i am going to close with the one thing that i have been having a lot of trouble with...baby straps and buckles. every single thing we have for maddie that has a buckle i have caught my finger in and drawn blood! tonight it was her bouncy seat. in trying not to catch her belly or bare skin in the buckle i cover it with my own hand and catch a fingertip. i have done it on the bouncer, both strollers, and the baby carrier. its probably just me since i could hurt myself with just about anything, but, man, i am running out of bandaids!

that's all for tonight. love.